re a number of individuals, any one of whom might be Ann, more
than one of whom might be fighting the things Ann had fought, seeking
the things Ann had sought. It was that about the city that _got_ her. It
was a city full of individuals, none of whom were to be dismissed as
just this, or exactly that. She challenged all groupings, those
groupings which seemed formed by the accidents of life and so often made
for the tragedy of life.

She was talking to him about chorus girls; announcing her discovery that
they were just girls in the chorus. "I was once asked to define army
people," she laughed, "and said that they were people who entered the
army--either martially or maritally. Now I find that chorus girls are
girls who enter the chorus. Even their vocabularies can't disguise them,
and if that can't--what could?

"Though there are different kinds of chorus girls," she reflected. "Some
wanted to be somewhere else. Some hope to be somewhere else. And some
swaggeringly make it plain that they wouldn't be anywhere else if they
could. I'd hate to have to say which kind is the most sad."

"Katie," he said--he never spoke her name save in that timid, lingering
way--"don't you think you're rather over-emphasizing the sadness?"

Two girls passed them, laughing boisterously. "Perhaps so. I suppose I
am. And yet nothing seems to me sadder than some of the people who would
be astonished at suggesting sadness."

That afternoon they were going to the telephone office. Katie had been
there early in the summer, to the central office and all the exchanges,
but wanted to go again. And Mann said he would like to go with her and
see what the thing looked like.

The officials were cordial to them at the telephone office, seeming
pleased to exhibit and explain. And it seemed that with their rest rooms
and recreation rooms, their various things to contribute to comfort and
pleasure, their pride was justified.

But when they were in the immense room where several hundred girls were
sitting before the boards, rest rooms and recreation rooms did not seem
to _reach_. They walked behind a long row, their guide proudly calling
attention to the fact that not one of those girls turned her head to look
at them. He called it discipline--concentration. Katie, looking at the
tense faces, was thinking of the price paid for that discipline. Many of
the girls were very young, some not more than sixteen. They preferred
taking them young, said the guid